Slice without fear, cook without bounds

How to Cut Strawberries Like a Cheetah (that means fast)

Have you ever had the opportunity to handpick strawberries directly from a farm? My mom was a stay-at-home-parent until I went into middle school so during the summers we had two main activities that we would do together. My mom was a big runner. Every week day she would go out and a three mile loop around town. When I was too young to be left at the house by myself she was still determined to go for her daily run. So she’d strap me into my barbie helmet and I’d trail behind her on my bike which still had training wheels and streamers attached. She recounts that she even had days where she had to pull my bike across a busier street to make sure that I got across safely.

My other summer memory was going to the strawberry farms. We had to get up extra early to make sure it wasn’t too hot while we were picking (ugh!). We’d never leave the house on time so it was always hot anyway (bleh!). Even when I was little I remember how much I hated having to bend over for a whole hour (gak!). Sure I could have just let my knees settle into the dirt, but even when I was a kid I’ve always had this thing against having dirt on me. Particularly because if it was on my knees that meant that eventually I’d have to wipe it off and then it would be on my HANDS. Which was just my least favorite thing in the whole world. So the moral of the story is…I DESPISED going strawberry picking. It always sounded so romantic with the smell of the soil, the rolling hills, the cool little gators in which the mennonite man would drive you to your aisle…but I never really liked it.

The only redeeming quality about picking your own strawberries was that when we were done and we took the berries up to the counter to check out there was always a basket full of whoopie pies (you might call them gobs) in all different flavors: Pumpkin, Chocolate, Vanilla. This was the only place where we visited that actually had whoopie pies! And whoopie pies are my all time favorite dessert.

In any case…I do love strawberries. Just not picking them. Slicing them is fun though. Let’s do that!

You shouldn’t be doing this with enough force that you’ll have to worry about cutting your thumb. However, if this makes you nervous, I’d suggest purchasing a cut resistant glove.

4. Keep the same grip on your knife. Turn the berry so it’s parallel to the knife. Press down on the berry with your thumb to slice through it while holding the berry with your non-dominant thumb and pointer finger.

5. Flip the berry so that you’re cutting perpendicular to the other slice and make another cut.

6. Repeat steps 2-5 with each berry until you’re done!

Hi friends! Do you have any other ideas of how to make this process faster? I’d love to hear them in the comments!